PC players, it’s time to herald the brand new yr by lastly retiring that outdated Home windows OS. Valve introduced in an official weblog put up that Steam would not help Home windows 7, 8, and eight.1 after January 1, 2024.

In keeping with the official Steam weblog put up, after that date present Steam Consumer installations on these named working methods will not be receiving any updates, together with safety updates. Steam can even not supply technical help or have the ability to assure Steam performance after that date.

In keeping with the newest Steam {hardware} survey, solely about 0.89% of Steam customers nonetheless have Home windows 7, 8, and eight.1 put in, which is across the identical quantity as these with Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics playing cards. Not an insignificant quantity contemplating that there are 31 million on-line Steam customers, however it’s nonetheless a relatively small inhabitants so the dropped help is smart on that entrance.

Valve beneficial customers replace their OS as “core options in Steam depend on an embedded model of Google Chrome” and that “future variations of Steam would require Home windows function and safety updates solely current in Home windows 10 and above.” The put up additionally cites normal safety dangers concerned in preserving these working methods put in with out correct safety updates to handle them. That is sound recommendation contemplating that Microsoft ended help for Home windows 7 in 2020 and Home windows 8.1 in 2023.

Microsoft ending OS help may spell catastrophe

Home windows 7, 8, and eight.1 aren’t the one ones which have gotten the boot from Microsoft, because the tech large is planning on ending help for Home windows 10 in 2025.

Not solely is that this placing a major quantity of customers out of an unsupported OS however, as analyst agency Canalys places it, may trigger an environmental catastrophe. That is as a result of present laptops operating Home windows 10 that don’t match the {hardware} necessities for Home windows 11, which implies that these laptops would most definitely not be recycled. That’s an estimated 240 million PCs changing into e-waste.

Customers can have the choice to pay for extended help, like with Home windows 7 earlier than it, however that solely prolonged the lifespan by three years and annually noticed rising prices for paying customers.

It stays to be seen how Microsoft will deal with this potential disaster, particularly since in recent times the company has appeared to turn out to be extra proactive by way of sustainable and simply repaired {hardware}, in addition to different environmental points.

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